Michael Graves

Rev. Wilbur and Jean Ellsworth of Wheaton announce the engagement of their daughter, Elisabeth Kelley, to Michael Wesley Graves, son of Betty Graves of Aurora and Thomas Graves of Schaumburg. The future bride has a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College. She is a teacher at the Medinah Christian School. Her father is the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Wheaton. Her mother is a piano teacher. The future bridegroom is a senior at Wheaton College, with majors in...

He has a surname of destiny, which means he really can't help being so effortlessly chic. He (of good taste, good looks and youth) is Giovanni Alessi Anghini -- and Alessi is the key word here. It is the Italian design/housewares company that gave the world way back in 1985 the now-infamous Michael Graves designer teakettle (with the blue handle and red whistling bird spout); a juicer by Philippe Starck that looks like a piece of modern sculpture; and a collection of espresso makers from the late...

Everyday objects are often dazzling -- thanks to designers like Michael Graves. This architect was in the vanguard when he designed a stainless-steel tea kettle with a snappy red bird on its spout for Alessi in 1985. The now iconic teapot is still produced today, with sales topping at 1.3 million and led Graves to do a line for Target in 1999 (including an economical teapot). Some 800 designs later, his smart household products are still a draw at the big-box retailer. Now he's taking his design...

Everyday objects are often dazzling -- thanks to designers like Michael Graves. This architect was in the vanguard when he designed a stainless-steel tea kettle with a snappy red bird on its spout for Alessi in 1985. The now iconic teapot is still produced today, with sales topping at 1.3 million and led Graves to do a line for Target in 1999 (including an economical teapot). Some 800 designs later, his smart household products are still a draw at the big-box retailer. Now he's taking his design...

If you were looking for an architect to relate to the full-bodied classicism of the original Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the austere but elegant minimalism of its mid-20th Century addition, Michael Graves certainly would have made the list. At its best, his mannered classicism is both spare and sensuous. But his $50 million renovation and expansion of the museum, which opened June 11 and includes the new Target Wing, is more spare than sensuous. Rising like a palace amid a...

If you were looking for an architect to relate to the full-bodied classicism of the original Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the austere but elegant minimalism of its mid-20th Century addition, Michael Graves certainly would have made the list. At its best, his mannered classicism is both spare and sensuous. But his $50 million renovation and expansion of the museum, which opened June 11 and includes the new Target Wing, is more spare than sensuous. Rising like a palace amid a...

Not to fear, this is one pot you can watch boil: a teakettle that not only whistles when it's ready, but signals with a playful, eye-catching display as well. Architect and designer Michael Graves, creator of the ubiquitous '80s "bird" kettle, appropriately calls his latest stovetop fixture the Ferris kettle: A small wheel attached to the kettle's spout spins freely with the force of steam. A decade ago, Graves, the quintessential Post-Modern architect...

Architect Daniel Libeskind has built his reputation on some famous commissions. He created the master plan for the new World Trade Center in Manhattan and designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Now he's got a new project: a luxury condominium in Covington, Ky. As developers flood real estate markets around the country with posh apartment buildings, they are turning to big-name architects like Libeskind to distinguish their gleaming towers from any others in town. As a result, in...

Michael Graves, celebrity architect and designer of artifacts, sits in a back office at a department store, staring critically at an inexpensive wine glass. The short, chunky object "doesn`t warm my heart," he says. But the familiar, muted green Perrier bottle next to the wine glass is another matter. The "Perrier bottle we could never improve on," he pronounces. "It's as good as it gets." When you`re Michael Graves, your opinion is routinely solicited on just about everything-from wine...

Architect and designer Michael Graves has contracted meningitis, which has resulted in lower-body paralysis, his Princeton, N.J., office confirmed last week. Graves contracted the disease in February, and has been undergoing treatment at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J., said the firm's director of communications, Caroline Hancock. Graves will be returning to work and his home in Princeton this summer, she said. In the meantime, Graves remains actively involved...

When you sell half a million stainless steel teapots with a little red bird on them, "that makes any manufacturer perk up," says architect Michael Graves, the designer of that bestseller. So impressed was Alessi, the Italian manufacturer Graves created his bird-whistle teakettle for eight years ago, that the firm asked him to continue to work for them-"looking for another winner like that," says Graves. And in the years since, the 60-year-old Graves has designed more than a hundred things-all tableware for...

Michael Graves may be internationally renowned in design circles, but the architect has hardly been a household name. A whimsical little teakettle he designed for Target, however, may bring fame to a boil. "The first time I went to see my products in the store, there was a little girl there who looked at her mother and said, `Look, Mommy, at all this cool stuff,' " Graves said. "Her mother said, `Yes, dear, it's very nice, and, you know, I do need a new kettle.' Then they...

Louisville is a pleasant, friendly, slow-moving town of 298,000 that is certainly not known for being at the cutting edge of architectural design. Yet one of America's most important buildings of 1985 was completed in the Kentucky city this summer under the hand of no less than superstar Michael Graves, the prince of Postmodernism. Moreover, the new Louisville skyscraper is the corporate headquarters of Humana Inc., a health-care firm that arose from relative...

Whoever thought sitting could be fun and exciting? That was the goal when Danish designer Verner Panton created the Phantom chair. The chair was designed to be used in every imaginable position as a multipurpose object. Upright, it can seat one person as a 32-inch-tall lounge chair. Tipped over, it will accommodate two sitting back to back. Turn it on its side and it becomes a 13 3/4-inch-high table. It's not only versatile, it's also mobile--it's made of polyethylene (plastic) and is extremely lightweight.

After the postman sees these, he`ll be tempted to ring twice. We`re talking mailboxes, here, with a distinctly all-American flavor. The boxes, designed by such notable natives as Michael Graves and Stanley Tigerman, are among the first offerings of "Projects," a home accessory line. "Traditionally, fine design came from Europe," said founder Jack Markuse, who was presenting his prototypes at Chiasso, 700 N. Michigan. "Since the `80s, that's been changing. What better way...

Michael Graves got a rush in a grocery store the other night. "I walked down an aisle, and there it was near the pasta, hanging on the outside of the racks--a black pasta drainer. You know, like a spatula, but it has claws." It was just a plain one, nothing special. "And it cost $2 more than our design for Target. If I hadn't been a Target shopper, I would not have known it cost too much. . . . I was amused." Now it is middle America's turn to be amused. Not only does...

Michael Graves may be internationally renowned in design circles, but the architect has hardly been a household name. A whimsical little teakettle he designed for Target, however, may bring fame to a boil. "The first time I went to see my products in the store, there was a little girl there who looked at her mother and said, `Look, Mommy, at all this cool stuff,' " Graves said. "Her mother said, `Yes, dear, it's very nice, and, you know, I do need a new kettle.' Then they...

Do televised violence and celluloid horror beget their real-life counterparts? Or do they simply cut the horror of real life by providing an escape? You could have argued either way Monday night as the House of Blues' quilted curtain parted to reveal a fake six-foot '50s-era television set, a prop that drove the all-ages crowd into anticipatory hysterics for the night's headliners, the Misfits. After the movie, the brown-robed Crimson Ghost pulled straitjacketed vocalist...

The gleaming sterling-silver and cobalt-glass centerpiece on the table at the Manifesto is a dazzler. Designed by architect Michael Graves, known to many for his tea kettle with the birdie on the spout and The Swan hotel at Walt Disney World, the centerpiece looks like a miniature Greek temple, with 10 rectangular columns, each faced with a checkerboard pattern of lapis lazuli and marble. This luxurious home accessory and several others are a visual treat for architecture-loving...

Martin Spicuzza represents that rare breed of designer who is able to blend art with business in relatively large volume. For the last seven years, the Cleveland native, now based in Chicago, has custom-designed furniture and depended on 20 workers to turn out 50 to 60 pieces a year. All reflect his love of beautiful woods and other natural materials, as well as attention to the smallest details. Grouped under the heading of the "Spicuzza Collection," his tables, chairs, consoles and other home...